Please check/advise on my new mid-range quiet system:

Hi. I'm soon going to build a PC with the aim of it being as quiet as possible. Speed is not the biggest issue - I probably wouldn't want to spend the extra for going from a 3000+ to a 3500+, becuase in terms of % boost, I don't think its worth the money.

At the moment I am looking at the following. Please could you advise on any weak components. I'm aware the graphics card is quite slow but I don't game that much.

At a later stage I will probably buy a second hard drive so its worth having the "ultra" motherboard, I think. I would get 2x200gb but you can't get spinpoints in 200gb....

Venice 3000+ with an Arctic Freezer 64 for CPU and Cooling
Abit AN8 Ultra nForce4 Ultra (no fan)
SLK3000B case with 2 x120mm fans and good value
Acoustipack for the above (what size do I need?)
Gigabyte 6600 with passive cooling
Enermax Noisetaker 485w
160gb Samsung Spinpoint
1gb ram (2x512mb)


Also I have a question:

I read a review about the Arctic Freezer which said it's best running at a lower voltage in terms of the volume/temp trade off (e.g. 5v) How does one go about adjusting the voltage so that its a bit quieter?

Thanks for any help,

Robin

I would recommend this Zalman cooler instead, which I have found to be very quiet and effective:
http://www.zalman.co.kr/eng/product/...x=142&code=005

For a quiet powersupply, I don't think Enermax are the best. The Seasonic S12 430W might be better:
http://www.xcase.co.uk/acatalog/Seasonic_Psu_s.html

Alternatively, you could get both case and PSU togther, and get the Antec Sonata:
http://www.antec.com/uk/productDetails.php?ProdID=08141

Yes everything would be fine with that.

Btw, the do make 200GB samsung spinpoints.


You would adjust the fan voltage with a fan mate, I myself have a Freezer 64 and it is on 5 volts.

I would suggest either getting a Nexus or a Seasonic PSU, your current PSU will not be quiet atall.

I have a 350 Watt Real Silent Nexus PSU coming up for sale (it ran my 6800GT, 3800 Venice, Dual Samsung Spinpoints fine)

yep the enermax noisetaker is not particularly quiet, ive got one sitting in my current system.

and tbh its not a great PSU either, definately look at something else.

umm... AFAIK, get an XP-120/XP-90C with a 92mm panaflo... PSU, well.. you can't really go wrong with Enermax, and yea.. maybe the Noisekiller flagship is a little misleading.. but hey, it still delivers... Tagan and UltraX are all very good PSU, can get it for 70 odd...

The Antec Sonata isn't great tbh. I changed the 120mm fan because it was too loud. The PSU isn't that quiet either. You can't remove the PSU with removing the heatsink on the CPU.

thanks. i think i'll go for the sonata then.

also I just found the 200gig+ spinpoints on Komplett, so thanks for that too :) neither ebuyer or ocuk stocked them....

With regards to the acoustipack, you would buy either the standard or deluxe and just cut it to fit. the difference between the two is that you get a few extra bits with the deluxe kit.

some cases including the sonata have pre-set kits made to measure available for them and can be bought from normal acoustiproduct vendors such as www.quietpc.co.uk and www.overclockers.co.uk the antec 3000 doesn't have a kit, but the 3700 does.

BTW, the Sonata has recently been superceded by the Sonata 2 which has a few design tweaks and a more powerful PSU.

You can trust my advice here, been reading the forums at silentpcreview recently. Here are my suggestions

1) Get a thermalright XP-120 for the CPU and add a nexus 120mm fan (Available at KustomPCs and cut the corners out so it can be mounted)

2) Get a Zalman northbridge cooler instead of disabling the stock fan

3) Case is very good, get 2 nexus 120mm fans for it

4) Acoustipack - get the deluxe version but unless everything else is really quiet its not worth it

5) Get the seasonic 430W mentioned above

6) 200GB spinpoint will be quieter than the 160GB as the new ones are quieter. Mount the hard drive using elastic to almost eliminate seek noise

7) Get a fan controller to put in a CD bay to switch between 5V and 12V on the fans

8) Lots of cable ties to sort out the cables for max airflow

That will guarentee you a quiet system
Ben